Have you ever felt more alive than when bringing something to life, in whatever form? Have you ever felt happier than when admiring one of your own creations—whether a child, a painting, or a gourmet meal? I sure as hell haven’t! Whatever your particular kind of fancy, it feels intrinsically damn good to give genesis to something.

It was almost exactly a year after my mom had passed. I was 31, living in a three-bedroom house alone in Phoenix. I had a fridge full of booze and fast food. My social interactions were few and hollow. I didn’t have a job and writing, my one true passion, had become purposeless for me—everything had.

“You’ve come through the worst of it, that’s what I’m hearing. You’ve come through the worst of it by far.” That’s what my guardian angel said. She told it to Ivory LaNoue and Ivory LaNoue told it to me. Like a game of telephone, I wondered if it was true.

We are a people who want to have our cake and eat it too. Spiritually speaking, this means we desire to live a high life of Love, but we also want to hold tight to our lowly ego desires, grievances, and fears. We want to be our highest self (Love-based) as much as we don’t want to let go fully of our lower self (fear-based), so we rationalize being a little of both.

Divine Alchemy A world of Phoenixes BY Arizona Bell T hough I always had an amateur interest, I began investigating invisible things fiercely when the material world—that of the visible—failed me once and for all. It had been a gradual uncoupling over many years, but...